The Symbolic Life : The Way of Marie-Louise von Franz

Symbolic thinking is a form of loving understanding, a light that does not dispel the god Eros.

Marie-Louise von Franz, quoted by Gotthilf Isler

In the summer of 1933, when Marie-Louise von Franz was 18, she was invited with some classmates to meet C.G. Jung, then 58, at his tower in Bollingen. That evening she recounted the day to her sister Marie-Anne saying at the end: “This was the decisive encounter of my life”.

From that moment, Marie-Louise von Franz devoted her life to the Unconscious and to Jung. She became his close collaborator, had her own analytic practice, lectured at the Jung Institute in Zurich and at conferences around the world, and wrote a multitude of books and articles explicating Jung’s ideas. You might know her chiefly for her fascinating analyses of fairy tales, or for her appearance in the documentary The Way of the Dream, but this learned woman also delved deeply into the archetypal basis of alchemy, number, quantum physics and the problem of psyche and matter.

She touched many people’s lives deeply and when she died after a long illness, tributes came from people all over the world.

Anne Di Lauro

In this talk we shall look at the symbolic life as she lived it: what symbolic thinking is and how it informs her writings and, according to those who knew her, her daily life.

Anne Di Lauro’s introduction to the ideas of C.G. Jung, many decades ago, came via the works on fairy tales by Marie-Louise von Franz. She has immersed herself in Jungian ideas since that time. She is a former president of the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland and practises in Brisbane as a therapist from a Jungian perspective.